1. Technical Field
The present disclosure generally relates to the field of computerized systems for analyzing documents. More particularly, the disclosure relates to methods and computer program products for analyzing patent-related documents.
2. Background Information
Analyzing patents can be a daunting task. As any patent practitioner would know, even the smallest alterations in the language used in the specification and the claims of a patent can cause major differences in claim construction during litigation and other proceedings. In some instances, applicants may file multiple patent applications with claims having slightly varying scope, in order to cover multiple claim construction scenarios. Analyzing the differences between these claims can be arduous and time consuming.
Typically, a person would manually perform such analysis by viewing multiple sets of claims as printouts or on a computer screen, and visually comparing each set of claims. One or more computer software tools, such as document comparison tools having redlining and other features, may be employed to aid in the analysis. However, this analysis method typically requires a person to manually review entire documents to determine the changes in the documents, and provides little or no visual guidance regarding similarities or differences between claims. As such, existing methods of analyzing patent-related documents are inefficient and may lead to inaccurate results due to human error.
The disclosed embodiments are directed toward an analysis tool which provides an improved method, system, and computer program product for analyzing patent-related documents or other documents.